A blog on all things Neo-Victorian. And maybe a few other things that interest me.

Sunday, August 28, 2011

Floriography - the Secret Language of Flowers

Thanks to my readers for hanging in there with me, while I took a brief hiatus. Life has been a little topsy turvy lately, but I am aiming to get back to regular postings. It definitely makes me admire my fellow bloggers who post daily. You guys are amazing!

A few weeks ago I posted about secret fan gestures. Another way lovers would communicate with each other, during the Victorian era, is through the Floriography, the coded language of flowers. Lovers would send flower arrangements to each other, including small ones called tussie mussies to communicate their feelings to each other, which was often difficult to do in a world where courtship was scrutinized by chaperoens and rigid social conventions made it difficult for people to be open about their feelings. Tussie Mussies, were small flower arrangements, usually wrapped in a doily, and tied together with a ribbon. They could be carried around or pinned to the chest.

Using flowers to convey meaning has been around in Europe since at least Medieval times. Even before this, certain plants and flowers were thought to have magical properties. Over time the folklore waned and magical tradition was reduced to symbolic meaning. In the 1700s with more contact with the eastern world, Chinese and Turkish traditions of floriography began to capture western imagination. In 1718 Lady Mary Wortly Montagu, the wife of the English ambassador to Constantinople became particularly interested in the Turkish tradition and helped to spread the eastern flower traditions into British fashion. It wasn't until the 1800s though that this really took off, as Queen Victoria was particularly taken by the idea of a secret language conveyed through flowers. During her reign, hundreds of dictionaries were published to satisfy the public's appetite for this poetic way to communicate.

Below are some of the more common flowers given during the Victorian era and their meanings. The list is quite extensive, though there are much more thorough dictionaries out there. Most have positive meanings, but there are some insulting ones. So if someone gives you an arrangement of mock orange flowers, oleanders and nuts, they're telling you to watch out stupid, you're being deceived.

Glad you're back, my dear. It's always a pleasure to learn something new about those crazy Victorianites. I love how they managed to compile something like this, that someone sat down and wrote the floriography bible, and yet it makes me wonder...what might the modern equivalent be?